This is a very exciting time for hospitality. Not only are hotels around the world welcoming guests again in greater numbers, but there’s a tangible mindset shift in the way that most hoteliers operate. This is fueled by the realization that technology is the gateway to a more personalized, more memorable version of hospitality, and the twenties are set to be the decade of the hotel tech providers.
So where does Mews Ventures fit into this industry landscape? In short, at the forefront, helping to shape the future of hospitality. By bringing together the brightest minds in tech, hospitality and beyond, we aim to fuel growth and innovation. In fact, this mission has already begun with a series of acquisitions over the past two years.
But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Let me first tell you more about the who and why of Mews Ventures.
What is Mews Ventures?
Mews Ventures is our investment arm whose mission is to modernize the guest experience and the way in which hoteliers run their operations. We do this by seeking to accelerate the technological transformation of our industry by consolidating past leaders as well as boosting new and interesting ideas in hospitality, connecting the best people and technology with the growing Mews community.
Mews Ventures is comprised of deep specialists who are looking to grow our corporate footprint in the area, looking to both boost companies whose ideas we like in the industry – especially those that are working to innovate in hospitality and beyond and sharing our idea around multiple space types – as well as those who can innovate around the idea of convenience.
The team comprises industry specialists, experienced analysts, and the deep experience of former Founders who have joined Mews. By drawing on their experiences, we’re able to ensure that any future partnerships are successful in bringing new talent into the growing Mews fold, both in terms of process, welcome, and culture fit.
The three pillars of Mews Ventures
How do we go about achieving such an ambitious goal? There are three different areas in which we’re active.
Transformation
As I already noted, hospitality is a remarkably fragmented industry, especially when it comes to different versions of hospitality clouds. There are many companies in the space who are excited by the idea of consolidating their tech stack into Mews and offering their hoteliers the benefit of a world class community and a more modern platform.
When these teams fuse with Mews, every member of their existing team becomes part of Mews, in their existing role or as something new and we push to make sure that they can find a greater role within an expanding organization, now numbering more than 600 people in 15 locations around the world.
Examples of this include the acquisition of Planet Winner in 2019, the acquisition of Base7booking in 2020, and the acquisition of Hotel Perfect in 2022.
Partnerships
There are some companies whose vision aligns really well with ours, and – in the case of PMSs – whose customer base is one that we feel would eventually migrate perfectly to the Mews platform. However, it may be that there are some features that we still need to develop before we do so, and by partnering closely with the PMS we’re able to better understand customer needs and how we can work together to solve them.
Our acquisition of Cenium earlier this year is an example of this; they were Nordic Choice Hotels’ in-house PMS, and by working with the Cenium team (now part of the Mews team) we were able to develop an action plan to migrate all 200+ Nordic Choice Hotel to Mews – something that’s already begun.
Product boosts
Despite the hugely talented product and tech teams at Mews, there’s only so much we can build ourselves. There are countless exciting specialist tools on the market, some of which might fit ideally into the Mews feature base.
Of course, this is something that requires plenty of serious consideration. After all, one of Mews’ differentiators is our open API and huge marketplace of 600+ hospitality integrations. The key question we ask ourselves about this type of investment is whether we believe this new product should be part of our hospitality cloud’s core, or whether we help boost those that are working on some of the most innovative parts of hospitality.
Our acquisition of Bizzon POS is a case in point, and I’ve already written in more detail about why we brought Bizzon into the Mews fold.
Want to know more?
If you haven’t already seen it, I highly recommend a visit to our Mews Ventures website. It explores our values, mission, people and work in more detail. And if you’d like to start a confidential conversation about whether your business could be suited to working with Mews Ventures, you can email us at ventures@mews.com.
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